Sunday, October 20, 2013

Not Happening

You may have noticed that I have fallen off the 31 Days wagon. It's true, I can't come up with 31 things that I like about living in NE Florida. I started the process with a list of fifteen things, feeling sure that once I got started, other things would occur to me. Sadly, that did not happen. Not only did the list come up short, but almost nothing makes up for the cultural differences. We are most assuredly "Damn Yankees" ("Yankees go home, Damn Yankees stay"). We do not fit, and, likely, we never will.

It's not all bad news though. Sometime in the last year, T2 told me "I still hate it here, but at least I am not miserable anymore". As he said that, I realized that he is right. I do want desperately to go home, but, I have found a place here that makes waking up in the morning much easier. While some of our neighbors do, unashamedly, fly the Confederate flag, our neighbors to the immediate right and left are also "not from around here" and we can be ourselves around them without being dismissed and/or reviled. Neighbors that we had not met, came forward to offer help and sympathy in the aftermath of the fire. There is a community here for us, even if it is a community of "misfits".

In closing here is the rest of my happy list:

Unitarian Universalists (I don't think I/we could have made it this far without them.)

Kerri & Michelle (The thing is, it took the comfort and safety of the UU for me to feel safe enough to take an emotional chance on outside connections. I am so glad that I did. I love and depend on these two lovely ladies.)

Starbucks (Don't laugh. They are nice to me there.)

Hubby and sons (Luckily we are not the kind of people who take out our misery on each other. We really have been in this together.)

Good insurance (Post fire, this can not be under-appreciated.)

Nancy (An early friend who has stood by me even when my hermit tendencies come to the fore).

Teresa/Kelly/New freindships (Again, comfort in one area of my life, left me able to be open to new friendships. Being open to new friendships has brought some lovely people into my life.)

December (When mid-Dec rolls around and I am still sitting outside at Starbucks, I feel good.)

The Sky (We have the prettiest sky here. The blue is very blue and the clouds are fluffy and distant. My mom says the sky is like that in Puerto Rico but that I was too young to appreciate it when we lived there.)

That's it. That's all I've got. With two boys in college, we are not going anywhere else anytime soon. However, once the boys are good to go, so are we. Until then, we still hate it here, but at least we are not miserable.